Singapore, Nov. 15 (CNA) Taiwan's Minister of Economic Affairs

Shih Yen-hsiang met his Chinese counterpart behind closed doors in

Singapore Sunday to work out an agenda for bilateral talks on a

proposed bilateral economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA).

The meeting between Shih and China's Minister of Commerce Chen

Deming took place a day after Chinese President Hu Jintao promised

Lien Chan, Taiwan's representative to the annual summit of the

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, that talks on ECFA, a

cross-Taiwan Strait version of a free trade agreement, could start

within this year.

Shih was accompanied by Huang Chih-peng, director of the Bureau

of Foreign Trade under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and Lu

Wen-hsiang, an adviser and section chief at Taiwan's representative

office in Singapore, during his meeting with Chen.

Sources close to the Taiwanese delegation said Shih and his

Chinese counterpart exchanged views on the ECFA-related consultative

framework, timetable and topics to be addressed.

With the two sides scheduled to hold a fourth round of high-level

talks in December in central Taiwan's Taichung City, the sources said

the ECFA issues are expected to be touched upon during that meeting

in accordance with Hu's promise to Lien in their bilateral talks on

APEC sidelines Saturday.

Four agreements are scheduled to be signed during the Taichung

round of talks between the two sides' top cross-strait negotiators --

Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung and

Chen Yunlin, president of China's Association for Relations Across

the Taiwan Straits.

Shih said on the APEC sidelines that the four agreements to be

sealed at the upcoming Chiang-Chen meeting concern fishing crew

cooperation, farm produce quarantine inspection, avoidance of double

taxation and industrial product standards, inspection and

certification.

"All of these agreements are very important in the process of

normalizing cross-strait trade and economic relations," Shih said.

According to a previous cross-strait consensus, the two sides

will start formal negotiations on ECFA issues in January next year,

with relevant issues being tentatively discussed first at the

forthcoming Chiang-Chen talks.

If all goes well, the ECFA deal is expected to signed at the

fifth round of Chiang-Chen talks scheduled for the first half of

2010.

Taiwan attaches great importance to the cross-strait ECFA deal,

as it hopes the pact can serve as a stepping-stone for the signing of

free trade agreements with other countries to facilitate freer flow

of goods and capital and to protect it from being marginalized in

today's era of increasing regional and global economic integration.

Taiwan and China have already held four rounds of informal talks

on ECFA, all of which focused on principles related to an "early

harvest list" under the agreement.

The "early harvest list" refers to items to be subject to tariff

concessions or full market opening as soon as the ECFA pact is

signed.

(By Tang Pei-chun and Sofia Wu)

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